10 Great Tips for Catching Redfish

It's spring, inshore water temperatures throughout the Southeast are breaking 60 degrees, and that means bait fish are being beckoned to sleepy creeks and rivers.

Red drum, a premiere saltwater game species, are starved and breaking out of their winter schools, wildly excited like school children ready for summer break. That means it's game on for fisherman.

These popular game fish average between 15- to 23-inches, and up to 5 pounds; however, the 94 pound, 2 ounce world record was hauled in from North Carolina in 1984. Redfish feed on the South's plentiful blue crabs, mullet, and shrimp, along with any enticing lure. Their broad diet and voracious appetite allow anglers of all experience levels the opportunity to cast a spinning reel or fly rod and hook up for a bullish fight.

We caught up with John Irwin, ace inshore guide of Fly Right Charters in Charleston, S.C., to get his Top 10 tips to go out this month and land a bruising redfish.